Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I am so glad I did all of my Christmas shopping in May and left the gifts in Texas. I have a few small gifts for the kids that we will put under the tree here, but are all anticipating opening gifts in Roscoe!! I see all of the Black Friday commercials and am glad I have no need to brave the crowds for a 'good deal'.

I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is THIS week. We are meeting some fellow residents and their families at Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving. This Friday we might check out the Jamestown settlement to learn how the Indians and Colonists gathered, prepared, and preserved food that would have been in the ORIGINAL Thanksgiving meal. Maybe everyone else will be going shopping crazy and it won't be too busy!!!

The kids are looking forward to putting our trees up this weekend. Our trees this year will be: a Texas tree in the playroom, 4 ft girly tree in Avery's room, 2 ft tractor tree in Josiah's room, and a purple/silver/black tree in the living room. I can't remember if I have an extra tree for the playroom, may be the ONLY purchase made on Black Friday.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The day Mom left, Walter also left for Orlando. He stayed there until Sunday night. He was gone when I really needed him!!
On Friday morning, Josiah and I took Avery to school, came home and ate breakfast, and I started walking on the treadmill while he played with his trains. All of a sudden I heard him behind me screaming. I immediately turned off the treadmill, but it had already sanded his fingers down to the muscle/cartledge. I grabbed him, ran upstairs, had him chug some Children's Advil right from the bottle, threw him in the car and sped of to the E.R. at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. We were both crying as we drove, I felt so bad for him because he was in SUCH pain. On the way he said, "Remember how our car died? Am I going to die too?" It just broke my heart! I just started praying out loud for his pain, our anxities, and that traffic would clear out of the way. When we got to the hospital, they got us in to the doctor quickly. At some point I texted Walter that we were at the ER cuz Josiah had hurt his hand. The doctor started out by putting some cream on Josiah's hand to numb the fingers. Josiah and I started watching Polar Express. About 30 minutes later they came to clean his hand, but it was not numb. It took three grown men to hold him down to give some injections in his fingers to numb them. About thirty minutes later, they could finally clean his hand. Then the doctor had to cut away all of the dead skin that was just hanging from his fingers...Josiah and I kept our eyes glued to the TV. Once everything was bandaged up, they sent us to the pharmacy for antibiotics and I had a follow-up in the ER on Sunday morning. Walter called me as we were leaving, "What's an 'er'?" I wanted to throw the phone!!! DUH!!!
On Sunday, we had to miss church and the kids and I spent the morning hanging out in the ER. The doctor took her sweet time! They decided to treat his injury as a burn, since there was no skin left. They gave me a large box with silver nitrate cream, petroleom infused gauze, 'ouchless' gauze, wrap, and medical tape. Monday morning, Josiah refused to let me bandage his hand after bath time. I had to take him up to Walter on Walter's lunch break. (He has cried in pain everytime we have to change the bandage.) On Friday, Walter took Josiah to the pediatrician for a follow-up. She referred him to a hand surgeon because she thinks he will need a skin graft. Me and the little guy will go for the consult tomorrow. There are two types of graft: a synthetic one, and one that requires them to remove skin from another part of his body under anethesia. Neither option sounds like a lot of fun!
In the meantime, my back has decided to spaz out. I have been in so much pain that I can barely walk. I have been very good frieds with Icy Hot and the heating pad, and the 800 mg Advil has done nothing to ease the pain. I guess I should see the doctor, but that is on the back burner for now.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Mom came and stayed with us for 12 days...much too short of a visit. There were tears all around when we dropped her off at the airport this afternoon. We have to comfort ourselves with the thought that we will be in Texas from Dec 21st-Jan 1st.
We crammed in as much fun as possible while she was here. We visited the park to enjoy the colors of fall, went to Brookside Garden, went to Avery's Brownies investiture ceremony, Trunk-or-Treat, pumpkin patch, fabric stores, the B & O railroad museum and more. We discovered that if you wait until the day after Halloween to go to the pumpkin patch, you get your pumpkins for free!!! I introduced Mom to my favorite Thrift store and she made some purchases of her own!! She recovered my kitchen chairs, sewed curtains, and helped recover some upholstered chairs for the living room. We got the house clean and organized...including the terrible playroom. She and the kids had several 'slumber parties' downstairs where there was popcorn, cupcakes, Uno, dominoes, and FUN! We look forward to having more family come and visit, and we hope it is soon!!
Josiah and Avery both say their favorite thing to do with Mia, was learning to play Uno.